I've been trying for several days to get Backtrack 3 running properly on a volume on my MacPro desktop without success. I have a Win XP partition and added a new partition for Backtrack using the procedure described by P1llow T@lk: "Triple boot: Install backtrack AFTER Windows is installed in OSX (no data loss)"

P1llow T@lk leaves the actual details of the Backtrack 3 installation up to the user since there are many guides available, so I used the one posted by macpentester: "Installing BackTrack 3 Final to an Intel Mac"

After a several unsuccessful installation attempts (the Backtrack 3 Live ISO CD would repeatedly "freeze up" at random times during the installation which left me no option but reinstalling from scratch), I managed to get the complete installation process done. Unfortunately, the Backtrack 3 volume will not mount or show up on the desktop, and Disk Utility shows the volume as disk0s3 in grey letter and gives me the following error message:

Mount failed
The disk “disk2s3” could not be mounted.
Try running First Aid on the disk and then retry mounting.

I don't know if my drive setup has anything to do with my problem, but just in case, this is what I have using 3 hard drives:
1. 250GB primary: Mac volume with OS X 5.7, Windows XP and Backtrack 3
2. 500GB: OS X 5.0 (haven't had a chance to update it to 5.7 yet)
3. 1TB: Carbon Copy clones of the 250GB and 500GB Mac volumes

So the problem is that the newly created Backtrack volume is not mounting and is not showing up with an option key start. If I use rEFIt, I get a grey "Windows" icon with "Boot from Legacy OS" which I assume is the Backtrack partition, but if I try to boot from it, the screen displays the grey Windows icon and nothing happens.

Also, rEFIt refuses to work from my startup drive, however, I can get it to work from USB or CD. When I use rEFIt from USB or CD, I get the rEFIt icon screen and I have to hit "P" (partition screen) for anything to happen, otherwise it just defaults to OS X startup without displaying the rEFIt meny items.

Aside from these problem details, my question relates to P1llow T@lk's procedure. Perhaps getting these quetions cleared up will solve the Backtrack problem... His procedure which leaves some (critical ?) details unexplained and I would have posted this question on the thread, but the board makes newbies wait 3 days to reply to posts, which makes little sense if people are trying to get help reasonably quickly....

Anyway, the questions: Near the end of P1llow T@lk's procedure for setting up the partition to "Triple Boot" he describes how to modify the lilo.conf. He says "...merely add in an extra section at the end:" and then gives 3 additional lines to add. I have already modified my lilo.conf file as per macpentester's instructions) so I have looked at the file closely (I don't have it in front of me without rebooting Backtrack), but it's not clear exactly where "at the end" he means... Is it right AFTER the "label = Linux" line, or AFTER the last line that says something like "#End of file".

Secondly, his procedure also says "Modify the fstab and install it"... This is not very helpful... After Googling "fstab" I found out that it was a file, and I managed to find the fstab file in the same /etc/ directory as the lilo.conf file, however I have no idea how it should be modified, and what I need to do to "install" it... While this information may be obvious to the experts, it is completely cryptic to newbies who are learning the ropes.

So, hopefully someone here has used the procedure(s) or has managed to set up thei Mac to triple boot with Windows and Backtrack, and can provide some advice on getting my Backtrack volume to mount so I can get it working without the constant freezes I get with the CD...

Thanks :)

Apple-Z

07-24-2009, 02:51 AM

cr1spyj0nes

backtrack 3 dosent want to work with os x "in my case", but iv found backtrack 4 to work quite well, what i did was in stall windows with bootcamp, with twice the hardrive space need'd, so that once windows is installed then boot up bt4 live cd and partition the windows partition in half and instal backtrack on that, at refit you should see os x and windows, when you hit windows you should then see grub looader screen with the option to boot windows or backtrack, remember to always back up your hardrive befour messing around, also os x does not know howto mount ext3 or 4. hope this helps.

07-24-2009, 02:40 PM

Apple-Z

Quote:

Originally Posted by cr1spyj0nes

backtrack 3 dosent want to work with os x "in my case", but iv found backtrack 4 to work quite well, what i did was in stall windows with bootcamp, with twice the hardrive space need'd, so that once windows is installed then boot up bt4 live cd and partition the windows partition in half and instal backtrack on that, at refit you should see os x and windows, when you hit windows you should then see grub looader screen with the option to boot windows or backtrack, remember to always back up your hardrive befour messing around, also os x does not know howto mount ext3 or 4. hope this helps.

OK, thanks for that info cr1spy. I could resize my Windows partition which is currently set at 32GB to accommodate an additional partition for Backtrack, but then by going larger than 32GB I lose the ability to transfer files between my Windows drive and OS X... I suppose I might be able to create a 5GB Backtrack partition inside the existing 32GB partition and keep my Windows applications fairly slimmed down though. I downloaded Backtrack 4 last week, but it is still beta as far as I know... (?)
You mentioned "grub"... I've run across this term before in some of my reading... Isn't it somehow related to getting Backtrack to mount in OS X ? Does it come with BT4 or Windows or is it something else I'll need to install or otherwise configure in my XP/Backtrack volume ?
As far as Ext 3, I have also read some information regarding OS X having problems mounting BT3 from USB drives, but it's a little bit of a mystery to me that the Backtrack 3 Live CD (and even the "USB" CD) will boot perfectly well on an Intel Mac, but Backtrack on a USB drive or a separate partition won't boot at all.
I still can't figure out how some people (the authors of the posts I referred to) have managed to get Backtrack 3 to work as separate partitions. I guess I'll have to wait another couple of days before I can actually post to the correct forum and see if I can get some clarification from the folks who got it to work... If not, I will try your method since it seems fairly painless (assuming you can fill me in on the "grub" issue...)
Thanks again !
Apple-Z